[coined in a paper by T.H. Myer and I.E. Sutherland On
the Design of Display Processors, Comm. ACM, Vol. 11, no. 6,
June 1968)] Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a
computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral
hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power
as it does its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support
two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back
into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again.

Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in
graphics-processor design, and at least one or two in communications and
floating-point processors. Also known as the
Wheel of Life, the Wheel of
Samsara, and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist
theological idea. See also blitter.